Dutch Donderdag - It's Battenberg… but not as we (Brits) Know it

Mention the word Battenberg to any Brit & it immediately conjures up childhood memories of a favourite British treat brought out by grannies to have with afternoon tea. A cake of lurid yellow & pink squares stuck together with raspberry jam & covered in a layer of marzipan. However, this being a British dessert, the sponge would always be dry, the marzipan layer thin & the jam layer even thinner (hence the need for a cup of tea to add much needed moisture).

It may surprise you to know that the Dutch have their own take on the Battenberg cake… & thank the gods that it’s a whole lot nicer! In the cake aisles of the Dutch supermarket you can find packets of pale, cylindrical cakes partly covered in chocolate called Mergpijpjes. Bizarrely mergpijpje translates as 'marrow pipe', but these aren't to be confused with dog biscuits or animal bones.

These mergpijpje are bad (unless your a dog).

 

 

 

 These mergpijpje are goooooood!

The difference is not only in the eye of the beholder (say bye bye to the neon pink & urine yellow) but also in taste. A nice thick coating of marzipan encloses a small amount of sponge, a creamy filling & (depending on the make) a dollop of jam between the two. It’s probably more jam than you would find in the entirety of a British Battenberg cake. Oh & there’s the chocolate of course… who can say no to marzipan & chocolate?

Despite being somewhat sweeter than its British counterpart these cakes are incredibly moreish & are definitely worth looking out for to have with a nice strong coffee.

Sorry childhood… I prefer Johnny Foreigner’s

Dutch Donderdag - A Little bit of the Exotic

Wander around the city of Amsterdam for any length of time & eventually you will hear a rather unusual bird call. A call that’s more ‘squawk’, than the usual tuneful twittering bird calls of Europe {listen below}. If you’re lucky & look up in time you may see a bird flying overhead, one with a long tail, one that looks rather like a parrot.

No, you’re not seeing things… these are the rose-ringed (aka rosenecked) parakeets of Amsterdam.

These foreign interlopers have been around for about 35 years, having probably escaped from private collections (or deliberately released), although the majority of individuals now living were born in the wild.

Despite their tropical appearance these parakeets are pretty hardy birds, having originated from the foothills of the Himalayas. They even breed during the winter. So for these guys a Dutch winter doesn’t put too much of a dent in their population.

The best place to see parakeets is in Vondelpark, in the heart of Amsterdam, where the population rules the roost (pun intended). Even just taking a walk along residential streets you’re pretty sure to at least hear them.

Some people see parakeets as pests, but currently their ecological impact seems to be minimal. Personally I love seeing these birds. I think they add an air of the exotic to Amsterdam, especially during the cold winter months when most ‘sensible’ birds have migrated to somewhere nice, warm & dry.

So, whilst wandering Amsterdam, don’t forget to look up occasionally… although don’t do it with your mouth open… who knows when one will decide to get rid of a few grams ;-)

Marine Mammal Monday - Is a Captive Orca like Having a Pet Dog?

An argument, by pro-caps (pro-captives), that turns up time & time again on anti-captivity articles is that having an orca, or dolphin, in captivity is exactly the same as having a dog as a pet. They pointedly tell anti-caps how hypercritical they are to be disgusted by cetaceans in captivity whilst their dog lays at their feet. I find this argument not only uninformed but also an insult to good dog owners the world over. To treat a dog the way orca & dolphin are treated would result in said dog being removed from its owner due to unnecessary cruelty. Think I’m being overly simplistic? Let’s look at the FACTS…

Domestication

Dogs were domesticated sometime between the years 30000 BC & 7000 BC. Their ancestors were wild, probably wolves, & over the centuries mankind has selectively bread them; removing their more wild traits, magnifying their compliant traits & physical features & making them the obedient domesticated animals they are today.

Orcas & dolphins are not domesticated animals. Many individuals currently in tanks were caught in the wild. The first captive orcas were taken during the 1960’s. There are probably three generations of captive bread orcas (grandmothers, mothers & calves). Even if facilities were selectively breeding out less predictable traits & breeding in more obedient traits (which they’re not as Tillikum has killed several times but has been used to sire many offspring) three generations alone would not achieve such a feat.

Training, performance & mental stimulus

Dogs require training & exercise, that’s a given. But what is the accepted frequency? Well that depends on the size of dog but on average, two to three walks a day of approximately 20 minutes is deemed enough outside activity to keep the animal healthy & mentally stimulated. Training for behaviour & tricks should be in short bursts of 5 to 30 minutes a couple of times a day. The rest of the day the dog gets to play, sleep & do its own thing.

Orcas in captivity have to do a lot of work. They can be working 365 days a year, eight hours a day. Hell, most humans get the weekend off plus 20+ days of vacation a year. Orcas don’t. They work day in, day out, trick after trick in a noisy auditorium.

Orcas require mental stimulus. An orca in the wild would get this from interacting with its pod-mates, hunting prey & investigating new things in its immediate environment. Much like a dog does when it’s taken out for a walk. Though, preferably, you would hope the dog’s owner won’t let it kill anything (the wolf is still in there).

For most captive orcas their sole mental enrichment comes from repeating tricks in shows &, if it’s lucky, physical contact with its trainer (though thanks to Tilikum’s revolt, this is not currently an option in most places). The level of stimulus an orca receives from performing these tricks doesn’t come close in variability to the amount of stimulus a wild orca, or a free roaming pooch, gets.

If a captive orca is REALLY lucky it may have tank mates. However, as quite often these are not natural family members the clash of personalities & following violence can end up doing more harm than good, mentally & physically. In large facilities the problem individuals can be isolated (which, for a social animal, is hardly ideal). In small facilities this is often not possible… creating more stress for the animal at the receiving end of the abuse.

Lifespan

  

The average wild wolf lifespan is 8 years. A captive wolf, away from the stresses of the wild can live up to 20 years. On average domesticated dogs live 12.8 years (averaged out for all breeds). Basically, captive wild wolves & domesticated dogs are a bit better off than their free-living brethren.

The average lifespan for orca is 50 years for a female (maximum can be 80-100 years) & 29 years for males (maximum can be 50-60 years). In captivity an orca is lucky to make it to its 20’s. Most die in their teens. This is an incredible decrease in life expectancy when compared to what age wild animals can live to.

Many pro-caps will point out that several captive orcas are reaching their average life expectancy. First off, these older animals are usually wild caught animals (Tilikum & Lolita to name two). Secondly they gloss over the large number of animals that died whilst young. Published scientific papers, in peer-reviewed journals, have shown that mortality rates in captive orcas (& their dolphin cousins) are actually higher than their wild counterparts. Wild born calves have a greater chance of survival living in a dangerous, wild environment than they do being born in captivity.

 

Housing conditions

In the wild orcas can travel close to 200km a day & may dive to depths of 60m. In captivity orcas live in small, round, barren, concrete tanks. The minimum depth of these tanks is only required to be 3.6m. Sea World tanks are usually bigger, but at approximately 7-11m in depth these tanks are nowhere near close to natural conditions &, in the case of a male orcas (which can be 6-8m in length) that’s barely enough room to be vertical in, let alone dive a distance.

Captive orcas need to swim round & round their tanks to get enough exercise, which is why even a young orca will display signs of its fin flopping over. In the wild orcas swim straight & true for many kilometres, the ocean pushing evenly on either side of their fin. Swimming in circles in a tank will cause more pressure to be exerted on one side of the fin… causing a slow collapse.

Let us imagine there is a domestic dog being kept in a cage proportional to its size as a tank is to an orca. A featureless wire cage that it’s kept in, day after day &, like some Sea world tanks, it has no shelter from the blazing sun. The owner takes the top off the cage to teach the dog tricks (for several straight hours a day!) to keep it “stimulated”. If it gets a trick wrong, food is withheld until it gets it right. In all likelihood that dog would be rescued by a humane society & its owner charged on counts of cruelty & abuse, possibly imprisoned & definitely fined. The vast majority of dog owners would be abhorred at such treatment to a family pet. Their animals are regularly walked out in the open, in stimulating countryside, for miles at a time.

Intelligence

In gauging animal intelligence the Encephalization Quotient (EQ), or encephalization level, is generally used, which is a measure of relative brain size. It is a ratio between actual brain mass & predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size. This resulting ratio is thought to be a rough estimate of the intelligence of the animal. EQ gives the following result…

Human                          7.4-7.8

Bottlenose dolphin         4.14

Orca                             2.57-3.3

Chimpanzee                  2.2-2.5

Elephant                       1.13-2.36

Dog                             1.2

As you can see, domestic dogs are nowhere near orca & dolphin in terms of intelligence. Even wild wolves are considered smarter than domesticated dogs. Furthermore, spindle cells (neurons that appear to play a central role in the development of intelligent behaviour) are only found in humans, the great apes, elephants & cetaceans (including orca & dolphins). When it comes to the development of higher-functioning intellect, domestic dogs don’t even get a look-in.

I hope this article goes someway to dispelling the pro-cap myth that having a captive orca is the same as having a pet dog. The differences in history, intelligence, physical requirements & treatment of the two species are worlds apart. Dogs, it would appear, may be dumber than captive cetaceans, but get treated a damn site better.

Writing Wednesday - I am a Published Poet

Well so far I’ve done bugger-all with my novel (*hangs head in shame*). Mainly I just haven’t been in an artistic frame of mind.

 

I’ll let you into a little secret though… I’m already a published writer, in poetry no less. It was 1992 and the author Jennifer Curry was creating an anthology of poems about war & peace. The book would contain works by William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy & yours truly. Ok, I was not the only child to be included in the book, four other schools were involved in writing new works for the book & out of my school a further eight pupils would be immortalised. But hey, it’s my one claim to fame. My poem also shows that, even at the age of 13, I was very much in marine biologist mode.

So, from “Dove on the Roof: A Collection of Poems about Peace” here is my poem…

 Destroyer Destroyed

In the ocean a ship lies

Amongst the coral and weeds.

Its guns are silent.

Round a port hole lurks a shark;

In the cabins, fish swim between the bunks;

They own the ship.

They hatch their young

In machines

That long ago took life.

Their home

Was once a Destroyer.

Shark and fish

Live together in peace.

 Now if I could just recapture that artistic flare & crack on with my novel…

Marine Mammal Monday - Review: The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones

It’s been a while since I wrote anything for Marine Mammal Monday (MMM), what with holidays & the death of my WIFI. MMM is when I will be taking a more serious tone. People need to be aware of the crap we are putting our oceans, the ocean’s inhabitants & ultimately ourselves, through. With this in mind, today I will be writing a book review… The one I promised to write a couple of weeks back.

He book in question is The Voice of the Dolphins by Hardy Jones

Don’t be put off by the title. This is not a hippy, hug-a-dolphin kind of book. No, it is Hardy’s personal voyage through dolphin activism, dolphin research & the illness that so closely links him to these marine denizens…

Hardy’s weapon in combating the abuse of dolphins, & their kin, is the camera lens & his first battle field was that created by the tuna industry. I myself remember seeing the horrific footage of dolphins being caught up in the massive purse seine nets & being crushed to death in the boat’s machinery. It was one of the catalysts that made me become a marine mammalogist. And Hardy himself was there… filming this wholesale slaughter. It was the resulting outcry at this treatment of cetaceans by the tuna industry that lead to the introduction of “dolphin safe” tuna.

The next call to arms was created by the annual dolphin slaughters in Japan. Two little towns, one called Iki, the other Taiji. To the inhabitants of Iki the once revered dolphins were now a “pest”. Mouths that took from the same dwindling fish stocks as the village’s inhabitants. The only course of action, kill the competition. Through film & public pressure the slaughter in the town of Iki ceased. In Taiji this slaughter continues unabated, with the small cetaceans seen as either food or highly profitable prisoners for dolphinaria. These days the perpetrators try & hide the truth from the camera’s eye.

The book is not all about the death that Hardy filmed. Between moments of brutality are the glorious days he spent with a pod of friendly, free swimming dolphins in the Bahamas. His mission, to research & show the more personal side of dolphins; their intelligence, their unique personalities & their social structure. In doing so he hoped that by showing the world that these animals were more than just unthinking pests or food that the tide would turn in favour of protecting these animals.

The final theme of this book is Hardy’s own battle with an illness that would see his life inextricably linked with that of marine mammals throughout the world. All the toxins we pump into the air, on to the land & into the sea doesn’t just disappear. It is a sad fact that, thanks to bioaccumulation, many cetaceans found stranded on the shore have to be disposed of as toxic waste. The level of contaminants in them, along with other large predatory fish, is much greater than is safe for human consumption. The seemingly healthy diet of fish that Hardy had been eating was, in actual fact, slowly poisoning him. This eventually led to Hardy being diagnosed with the cancer myeloma… a disease (amongst others) that is increasingly being found in marine mammals.

There are many people who regularly eat dolphin & whale meat & not just in Japan. The damage these peoples are doing to their health is only now starting to be understood. It is the hope of the author that it is this information that will eventually stop the types of slaughter seen in Taiji. Hopefully, before it is too late for man & dolphin.

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For more information visit BlueVoice.org